“The mur do not exist in our modern day. Endemic to Africa and parts of Asia, in addition to Alti, there is record of them centuries before. It ends in violence.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

Alone tree wolf climbed deftly among the branches guiding her path up the sheer white walls of Yan Shimelorian. The stone itself was lit with a slight gray pallor, borne from the hazy light of the pre-dawn sky. In this pale light danced thousands of fairy-like magical beads, issuing slowly from the flowers that climbed the stone. Those flowers were rooted to crevices and pits in the rock.

The tree wolf huffed the beads of light away from her dark nose when they came too close. In a moment, she had reached the apex of her climb, and proceeded along the curling edge of the cliffs.

“Relsrir,” Sheurai growled.

Sharp, muttering clicks and the soft scrape of bone against rock comprised the mur deer’s greeting to the tree wolf. Sheurai padded easily along the narrow rock escarpment where the deer had settled to watch the humans leave. At the very edge, the alpha sat, head level with Relsrir’s even though the mur deer was lying down.

For a long while, neither said anything. Both of their eyes were fixed forward, Sheurai’s perhaps on the dark, ever-shifting leaves of the forest canopy that stretched over the white walls of the cliffs, or perhaps on the beasts that lurked there. Relsrir’s gaze was fixed on some past or future, and the alpha knew the merits of letting the mur sift through the images the Sight gifted to her.

It was not quite day. The sun had yet to peek over the mountains in the east and cast its first light on the Grand Castle of Altiannia. They were near enough to see it. Sheurai’s gaze flicked in that general direction, having nothing yet to settle on, and the lay of her ears betrayed her feelings. For the beasts, the castle was a symbol of destruction, a cold reminder of an impending doom that hovered over the borders of the Issurak day and night. It had always been there, but never had it painted the southern horizon with such a certain and chilling aura of blood lust as it did now; the blood lust of the humans they were now promised to follow.

“Relsrir.” The alpha’s voice was very nearly a purr. The mur deer looked around, broad ears flared not in surprise, but to show that she was listening.

“What did you see? Which one are we to follow?” Sheurai rumbled.

“The nerske.”

Sheurai flicked an ear, detecting the barely discernible note of uncertainty in the mur deer’s tone. For a beast that spoke with only her mind, the emotions of her thoughts were easier to read.

“I could not see her future, nor her past,” Relsrir continued. “Her magic is strong and her intentions pure, but the more I tried to read of her mind, the more I became lost in it. Like a great and terrible labyrinth. It is a dark place. I was forced to break our contact before she killed me.”

“Killed?” the alpha growled softly, ears lying back suspiciously until she felt them brush the back of her skull.

“She was afraid, overwhelmed by a terrible magic. Her power is unsettling. I sensed it for the first time as I looked through her mind, looming like the towers of the Grand Castle, stagnant. For now, it lies in repose, but for how much longer, I cannot say. That child has died, and the aura of the dead moves with her.”

“Puzzles, Relsrir. The dead do not walk among the living,” Sheurai observed.

The mur deer turned her head slowly, staring blankly at the tree wolf who refused to meet her gaze.

“You are wrong,” Relsrir finally observed, “because if I did not know better, I would say that child is a Zara. I considered destroying her, for an instant. In her current state, I might have succeeded. Perhaps. But she seems so very alive.”

“Aren’t the vampires the same?” Sheurai asked nonchalantly, raising one velvety forepaw and slowly inspecting the area between her toes with her tongue.

“Very similar,” Relsrir answered, “Her scent is human, her magic is that of a Zara; a vampire is the most logical answer. But there is no vampire that is not self-aware.”

“But there are other things…,” Sheurai growled after a long silence.

“Years ago, when the human queen died within the forest, do you know of the rumors that leaked from the inner circles of the dragon srinn?” Relsrir asked.

“An abomination.” Both turned slightly to see a black form gliding swiftly towards them across the pale stone, and neither questioned his presence as Yanrian came to stand beside Sheurai. “I heard enough of those rumors to forbid the wolves from passing to the eastern end of Muritia, when the dragons said that one of their kin had broken the Laws.”

“Do you remember what it was that he did?” Relsrir asked calmly. There was silence for a moment, not as if the darker tree wolf were thinking, but rather, as if he were reluctant to speak.

“He raised the dead,” he growled finally, amber eyes narrowing. “An impossibility…but not one to be taken lightly.”

“You did right, all those years ago,” Sheurai assured him softly.

Another silence followed, filled with only the noisy chirping of the late summer insects, soon to vanish with the coming of Autumn. Yanrian grumbled something about the humans being safely seen off, and then about carrying the news of their alliance to the dragons. Sheurai stirred when the sun finally did peek over the mountains, and her mate stood to gather the few messengers he would take with him.

“What did the nerske see that scared her so badly?” Sheurai finally asked of the mur. A short pause followed before Relsrir answered.

“One of the Zara.”

“More Zara? Why in the keliarns’ stars are you telling us to follow her? If the Zara wake, they’ll wreak havoc in the Issurak.”

“I could not see her future, Sheurai, meaning I could not see the end of Alti when I looked into her mind. If there is even one chance to save this place, I must take it. Since I cannot see the end, I can hope, like all beasts, that it will not come.”

The alpha rose slowly, looking down sadly on the great mur deer for the first time. She waited, for a long moment, for Relsrir to turn and meet her gaze, but she waited in vain.

“It’s good for you every once in a while,” the alpha finally growled, “to leave room for hope in the future.”

“Your blindness is a blessing and a curse. Only the ignorant have faith, but to be ignorant is such bliss. To know what is coming without question, to see inevitability in life, that is tiresome,” Relsrir agreed, “but I’ll not question what I am.”

“I never asked you to,” Sheurai agreed.

“In that spirit, perhaps it is best that we do not question what she is for now, either. If the nerske can save us, I will even give my loyalty to one of the Zara.”